This story originally appeared in The Star-Ledger on January 26, 1987.

SUPER BOWL XXI: GIANTS 39, BRONCOS 20

BY DAVE KLEIN

PASADENA, Calif. -- The defensive furies came in the second half to Orange Crush the Denver Broncos into the warm, soft turf of the Rose Bowl.

Then Phil Simms, the quarterback who wasn't good enough to to the Pro Bowl but was named the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XXI drove the Giants to unthinkable heights yesterday, and in the southern California darkness, with the crowd of 101,063 chanting "We're Number One," Simms and the defense demolished Denver, 39-20, making the first Giants' trip to the Super Bowl a victory of gigantic proportions.

They finished their magical season with a 17-2 record and a 12-game winning streak, last losing on Oct. 19, a 17-12 decision in Seattle. They left no doubt of their superiority, slashing and cutting and roaring back from a 10-9 halftime deficit with 17 third-quarter points, chopping down the Broncos with a finality that smacked of dynasty.

Simms set a Super Bowl record for completion percentage, hitting 22 of 25 passes for 268 yards and three TDs - including 10 of 10 in the second half, for 165 yards and two TDs. "That was a magnificent performance," said head coach Bill Parcells, "and I hope it finally dispels all the myths about Phil Simms. He can play for me any time, and I don't care who else is available. He's the toughest man I've ever known."

Simms threw scoring passes of 13 yards to tight end Mark Bavaro, six yards to reserve tight end Zeke Mowatt and six yards to wide receiver Phil McConkey, a pass that first glanced off Bavaro's hands.

Halfback Joe Morris scored on a one-yard run, reserve fullback Ottis Anderson scored on a two-yard run, Raul Allegro kicked a 21-yard field goal and, finally, defensive end George Martin register a safety, tackling Denver quarterback John Elway in the end zone.
Gradually, as the Broncos played their finest first half of the season, as their surprisingly few fans tried with futile results to drown out the Giants' monstrous "home crowd," it became obvious that the Giants were tightening the screws.

"I felt when we scored with our first possession in the third quarter, and then our defense held them out, that we were going to crack it open," said Simms. "We seemed to suddenly get that electricity. We had kind of staggered around in the first half."

The third quarter served to end all competition, as it had in the Giants' spectacular comeback victory Dec. 1 in San Francisco, when they wiped out the 49ers' 17-0 halftime lead with a 21-point explosion.

"No, no adjustments, nothing like that," said Parcells. "We just stopped messing around."

Actually, they started. The down-and-distance quickly became fourth-and-one on the Giants' 46 when Parcells gambled. "This was for the world championship," he said later. "This was no game for the faint-hearted."

So he put the punter, Sean Landeta, on the field. The Broncos made the proper substitutions. Then they realized the up back, the blocking back, was reserve quarterback Jeff Rutledge. At that same instant, Rutledge went behind the center, took the snap and kept the ball, running up the middle for two yards and the possession first down.

From there, it was gravy. Simms hit Morris for 12. Simms hit reserve halfback Lee Rouson deep down the left side for 23. Morris went wide for three, Simms hit fullback Maurice Carthon for one more and, on third-and-six, he went for the bundle to Bavaro.

It put the Giants in front, 16-10, and the time bomb that was the Giants' defense ticked louder.

The Broncos took over. It was fourth-and-five and they punted. McConkey returned it 25 yards to the Denver 36. Nine plays later, Allegre's 21-yarder made it 19-10.

Denver took over again. It was fourth-and-two when they punted. McConkey called a fair catch at the Giants' 32, and on second-and-eight Simms hit wide receiver Lionel Manuel for 17 to the Broncos' 49. The next play netted four as Morris went wide right.

Then the Broncos slipped under the ice for good. Simms handed off to Morris, who charged up the middle and suddenly wheeled, flipping the ball back to Simms.

The Broncos hadn't even considered the possibility of a flea-flicker from this basic, ground-oriented Giant offense. Two receivers were open -- wideouts Bobby Johnson and McConkey. Simms let Johnson clear out the deep area by allowing him to go into the end zone, then threw to a wide open McConkey at the Broncos' 15. He was upended at the one-yard line.

It was a 44 yard gain, and on the next play Morris went wide left and it was 26-10.

On the final play of the quarter, defensive end Leonard Marshall dropped Elway for an 11-yard loss to the Broncos' nine-yard line. The unravelling was coming complete, and on the next play tackle Ken Lanier moved too soon, pushing the ball back to the Denver five, making it second-and-25.

Elway threw. Cornerback Elvis Patterson picked it off. The Giants had the ball on their own 48.

It took six plays, one of them an electric 36-yard pass to wide receiver Stacy Robinson, plus a 14-yard flagrant pass interference call on Denver cornerback Louis Wright, who wrapped himself all over Bavaro in the end zone, to put the ball on the Broncos' one.

Then a sack -- five yards inflicted by reserve DE Freddie Gilbert, the only one Simms absorbed all day -- made it third-and-six.

Simms faded back, went to Bavaro and, by his own admission, "threw too hard." The ball bounced off, and directly into the hands of McConkey, who had just missed a TD on the flea-flicker reception.

He celebrated. So did the crowd. The score was 33-10.

The rest of it was meaningless. Denver scored 10 more points, on a 47-yard pass from Elway to WR Vance Johnson and a 28-yard field goal by Rich Karlis, who had missed two first half attempts. The Giants got one more, OJ's two-yard run that capped a five- play, 46-yard drive and Allegre missed the extra point -- his first failure in 41 attempts this season.

The Broncos insisted they would be able to run the ball. They insisted even after repeated failures, after Sammy Winder and Gerald Willhite and reserves Gene Lang and Steve Sewell were slammed to the ground, straightened up at the line of scrimmage, trapped and slain In the backfield.

So finally, they stopped. The entire Denver ground production was 52 yards -- and Elway had 27 of them. Willhite carried four times for 19 yards, Lang twice for two yards, Sewell three for four.

Winder, the team's leading rusher all season, carried four times. He netted zero yards.
It went to Elway, the glorious, gifted quarterback who was, after all, Denver's only hope. He completed 22 of 37 passes for 304 yards and a TD. He was intercepted once. He was sacked three times -- twice by Marshall, once by Martin -- and many of his completions came on the run, hotly pursued by the likes of linebackers Carl Banks and Lawrence Taylor (who otherwise had an unspectacular game), by Marshall and Martin.

"That man is the best, the best absolutely," said an exhausted Marshall. "You chase him and he just slips past, and you chase him some more and he moves one way and you miss him again. I don't want to play him any more."

Elway may have the same reaction to a proposed rematch with the Giants. "That defense," he said, shaking his head. "That defense just seems to know what I want to do and how I'm going to try to do it. There's quickness up front, more quickness than we've seen. For this day, the Giants were definitely the best team in professional football."

At one point, bridging the second and third quarters, Elway threw 22 consecutive passes. He was a fury of his own, scrambling away from disaster, saving broken, busted plays with cross-field rifle shots, hitting WR Vance Johnson with a 54-yarder to set up a Karlis miss, hitting WR Steve Watson to set up another Karlis miss, leading the Broncos to all their points in the first quarter, a 24-yarder moving Karlis in position for a 48-yarder and a 3-0 lead, a series of flamboyant scramble-passes setting up his own four-yard run up the middle for the only Denver TD.

That the Giants shut him out in the next three quarters is more of a tribute to their defense than any other single fact.

That Simms won the MVP, and not Elway, and not even one of the defensive furies, was a tribute to the well-rounded balance, finally achieved, between the offense and the defense.